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In The Wages of Destruction, Adam Tooze argues that Nazism can only be understood as an ideology that was the product of a “society in transition” from a relatively agricultural and “backward” country into an industrialized European power. Hitler and the Nazis sought the ability to colonize its neighbors and alter “the European distribution of land, resources, and population” under Nazi control (196). In order to build the Nazi empire, Hitler relied on intensive mobilization and coercion to mass all possible resources to rearm Germany and then launch overwhelming attacks on several fronts. According to Tooze, the ideology of German racial superiority and the autarkic nature of the Nazi economy were not just wild ideas, but a serious reality that Hitler and his followers strived to achieve. Much of Hitler’s racial angst was directed towards the Soviet Union, were both Jewish, Slavic, and other populations soon became victims of Hitler’s racial war of annihilation.

While the U.S. was a growing threat constantly on Hitler’s mind, a threat that was closer to home and immediately undermined his domination of Europe was the Soviet Union. Moreover, Hitler specifically referred to the Soviet Union as a “ruthless Judeo-Bolshevik enemy,” thus combining his anti-Semitism with anti-Communism. The marriage of anti-Semitism and anti-Bolshevism was not unique to Hitler, but he was certainly the most extreme example. In fact, Hitler believed in an international Jewish conspiracy that bankrolled not only the “Bolshevik dictatorship,” but also Washington and London.[1] One irony in Hitler’s abhorrence of Bolshevism was the fact that both ideologies were “undoubtedly collectivist at their core.” After all Stalin and Hitler were both concerned with the industrialization of largely peasant societies, and both shared affinities for aspects of modernity such as Fordist production lines. However, Hitler had no problem contrasting his vision of a superior German racial community with the “Bolshevik cult of primitivism.”[2]

Not surprisingly Hitler found plenty of time in Mein Kampf for rants against his “Judeo-Bolshevik” enemy. Tooze eloquently summed up Hitler’s view on the Historical significance as follows:

“The essence of politics was ‘the historical struggle of nations for life’. This had manifested itself in a succession of major clashed: Christianity and the barbarian invasion, the rise of Islam, the Reformation. The French Revolution marked the beginning of the modern era. Ever since, the world had been moving ‘with ever increasing speed towards a new conflict, the most extreme solution of which is Bolshevism; and the essence and goal of Bolshevism is the elimination of those strata of mankind which have hitherto provided the leadership and their replacement by worldwide Jewry’. Compromise was impossible: ‘ A victory of Bolshevism over Germany would lead not to a Versailles Treaty, but to the final destruction , indeed to the annihilation of the German people.”[3]

With such a radical and racist view of international history, Hitler’s war plans soon had the explicit goal of preventing the “Bolshevization” of the earth by annihilating of the Jewish race in Europe. Furthermore, Hitler not only believed in an external Bolshevik threat, but his rise to power in Germany itself was to a large extent the defeat of German communists and “agrarian Bolsheviks” who were competing with nationalists in proposing solutions to peasant discontent, land reform, and other economic ills.

In sum, the fact that he applied the term Bolshevik to both internal and external enemies is indicative of the concept’s rhetorical potency during the interwar years. It is also worth noting that Stalin shared an equally antagonistic view of Nazi fascism and that the battle between these two ideologies was one of the major factors in the terrible methods and outcomes of the Second World War, particularly the horrific destruction of European Jewry and Slavic populations.

Further Reading:

Hirsch, Francine. Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University, 2005. (For great comparisons of Bolshevik and Nazi ideologies surrounding nationalism and race)

Hitler, Adolf. “Adolf Hitler Warns the World of the Menace of Bolshevism: Main Part of the Fuhrer’s Closing Speech, 1930’s.” A book of primary sources found in the Harry Ransom Center Book Collection. Call no. HRCMIN 18016 BW 12.

Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. New York: Penguin, 2007.

Waddington, Lorna Louise. Hitler’s Crusade: Bolshevism and the Myth of the International Jewish Conspiracy. New York: Tauris Academic Studies/ St. Martins Press, 2007.

5 Responses to “Hitler’s Twisted Vision of a “Judeo-Bolshevik Enemy””

I agree that Tooze’s discussion of the ideological aspects of the Nazi’s “anti-Bolshevik crusade” does much to open up new debates on the relationship between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. To ignore the Nazi’s paranoid vision of the “Judeo-Bolshevik menace” is to totally misunderstand the Nazi worldview. Indeed, worldview is a fitting term in this case, as the Nazi’s saw the threat embodied in economics, art, philosophy, and politics. For them, such a global problem could only be resolved by a vast geopolitical solution. While it is popular fare now to demonstrate the similarity between the two regimes, we must not forget the fundamentally different understandings each had of themselves, and of their counterparts.

Another interesting issue is the Nazi dilemma which began with the invasion of the USSR. Germany could either play down its racial ideology and soften its overbearing occupation regimes in order to unite a recently conquered Western Europe in the fight against Bolshevism, or remain ideologically and practically rigid in order to guarantee a flow of resources and political stability abroad. That so many non-Germans volunteered for the Waffen-SS, or in units like the Spanish Blue Division is a frightful reminder that some Western Europeans, even under no pretenses of Nazi goodwill, could join the struggle. Meanwhile, Fascist Italian intellectuals pleaded with Mussolini and with their German counterparts to turn the war against Russia into one framed by the defense of “Western and European Civilization”.

Given the popularity of the far-right in Western Europe at the time (not strong enough to take power in most countries, but enough to exercise considerable influence), the paradox of the Nazi ideological crusade and their inability to allow others the chance to fully join becomes particularly striking. Going back to Tooze, it seems this failure to fully engage the European right is a result of the real prize for the Germans: total domination of a European economic bloc designed to be neither capitalist nor communist, and fully controlled and enjoyed by a “pure” Aryan racial stock.

Wow, thanks for the great comment! I really like how you underline the strange challenge that Nazi ideology face once they occupied large non-German populations and had to decide who could be included into their project. One of the strangest incidents of non-Germans joining the ranks of the SS was a volunteer army of Central Asians led by a Pan-Turkic leader who saw joining the Nazis as the only way to avoid starvation in the camps.